Career Growth for Nurses Who Want to Make a Difference in Aging Communities

Slowly, but surely, the needs of any aging person will shift into a category never known to them before. Where once the focus was on preventative care, now the objective is quality of life.

Nurses who can facilitate high-quality elder care make an enormous difference in their patients' lives. While this is a category of medicine that many healthcare professionals come into contact with, some special nurses make it their primary focus.

What does it take to shift your nursing career toward an older patient demographic?

Roles

The role, naturally, will depend on the specific job you wind up taking. However, it’s worth noting that many geriatric-focused nursing careers are less about managing specific health problems, and more about helping the patient live a meaningful life.

For example, you might:

• Assist in physical therapy routines. This, so that the patient can enjoy as much mobility as possible.
• Help them manage their medications. Pretty self-explanatory. As people age, their medication requirements often become more complicated.
• Help them maximize their independence. Independence can mean different things at various stages of life. Your patients might not be driving themselves to the store but they can still enjoy a rich and autonomous life—it often just requires a little bit of extra help to make that happen.

An important part of the work is also just being a companion to people who might otherwise live very lonely existences. It’s not a fair default assumption that every old person lacks a social life. However, when they get to the point where need regular medical assistance to meet their basic needs it is fair to say that all of their social encounters are the byproduct of some sort of special effort.

Being the person who listens to them, even if it’s only for ten or fifteen minutes a day, can be an extremely meaningful contribution to their overall well-being.

Nursing Careers Focused on Aging Patients

Aside from the fact that many of the patients regular nurses care for are older, there are also nursing careers that focus specifically on geriatrics. These roles are available at various levels of credentialing.

For example, as a registered nurse (RN), you may be able to work in a nursing home or assisted living facility—settings where nearly all patients are elderly and rely on your support for a wide range of quality-of-life needs. You could also work as a home health nurse, providing care directly in patients’ homes. While this role typically doesn’t require a specialized certification or advanced degree, pursuing further education could allow you to take on a more strategic and impactful role in your patient’s care.

There are also nursing positions that aren't exclusively geriatric, but still bring you into frequent contact with older patients. Oncology is a good example. While anyone can get cancer, the median age of diagnosis is 66, meaning geriatric care becomes a large part of the job by default.

Consider Leadership Roles

Also worth considering is the value of general nursing leadership positions in improving the lives of older patients. Charge nurses or other professionals who provide strategic or managerial support might not have as many direct patient interactions, but their choices have an impact on more people.

There are multiple routes to nursing leadership. One of them is simply to be a great nurse for a long time. Do good work. Express an interest in assuming a leadership role. The chances are pretty good that you’ll get there.

The other route is to consider a graduate program with an emphasis on leadership.

Challenges

The most obvious challenge related to these careers is that they require additional certification or education. Most nurses are strong students and can usually handle the academic component without much anxiety. That’s not to say becoming a nurse practitioner—or any other form of advanced practice nurse—is easy. However, if you made it through nursing school, chances are you have what it takes to move on to the next step.

Of course, balancing coursework while working a full-time nursing job can be difficult. Most programs understand that their students are already working professionals and offer flexible class times and other accommodations to help make the process more manageable. It’s also important to remember that you can pursue your credentials at your own pace. While full-time programs typically take two to three years, there’s no actual time limit. You could take ten years if you want to—though most part-time paths wrap up within four to five.

One challenge that many people don’t anticipate, though, is the emotional toll. Nurses already deal with difficult situations, but gerontology care presents its own kind of hardship. It’s not necessarily that the situations are sadder—though sometimes they are—it’s more that your baseline experience shifts. In an ER, the goal is to get better. With gerontology, the goal is to slow decline. That’s a different kind of objective, and it can wear on you over time.

You might think, “I’ve seen things. I can handle this.” And maybe you can—probably you can. Hopefully, you can. But don’t underestimate the emotional impact of growing close to your patients. You may work with them every day. You’ll know their children. You might even provide care in their homes. Watching someone’s health steadily decline after you’ve built that kind of connection is difficult.

That said, there’s comfort in knowing that your work makes a real and lasting impact. Yes, your patients are getting worse, but that would happen either way. Because of you, their final years are more comfortable and filled with dignity—and that matters.

Conclusion

Zeroing in on geriatric care is a noble route, even if not one that will suit every nurse. You need to be open to regular sorrow and disappointment. Neither feeling is foreign to the average nurse but they take on a different meaning in a category of healthcare where “getting better” isn’t really in the cards.

Think about the experiences you have with aging patients now. Their heightened needs. Their often poor prognoses. Would you be ok with a career where these were the only situations you found yourself in?

If so, you might be a great fit for a career in geriatric nursing, where the work is never easy, but is always meaningful.